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It was a soft June evening, with a lingering light and swarming crowds, as they then seemed to me, of figures reminding me of George Cruikshank's Artful Dodger and his Bill Sikes and his Nancy, only with the bigger brutality of life, which pressed upon the cab, the early-Victorian fourwheeler, as we jogged over the Bridge, and cropped up in more and more gas-lit patches for all our course, culminating, somewhere far to the west, in the vivid picture, framed by the cab-window, of a woman reeling backward as a man felled her to the ground with a blow in the face.
Boz, and the Chairman, and Vice, and the Traditional Priest sang the 'Deep deep sea, in his deep deep voice; and then we drank to Procter, who wrote the said song; also Sir J. Wilson's good health, and Cruikshank's, and Ainsworth's: and a Manchester friend of the latter sang a Manchester ditty, so full of trading stuff, that it really seemed to have been not composed, but manufactured.
It would not, perhaps, be out of place to glance through the whole of the "Jack Sheppard" plates, which are among the most finished and the most successful of Mr. Cruikshank's performances, and say a word or two concerning them. Let us begin with finding fault with No. 1, "Mr. Wood offers to adopt little Jack Sheppard."
Let any reader of the novel think over it for a while, now that it is some months since he has perused and laid it down let him think, and tell us what he remembers of the tale? George Cruikshank's pictures always George Cruikshank's pictures.
He was a ruffle-shirted Pharisee, who affected the airs of a bishop, and resembled Cruikshank's pictures of Pecksniff. There have not been many "Old Poms" in our public life; or, for that matter Aaron Burrs either, and but one Benedict Arnold.
The idea of the work was novel; there was, in the first number especially, a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank's designs were so admirable that the Almanac at once became a vast favorite with the public, and has so remained ever since.
All the accessories are good, and the apartment has a snug, cosy air; which is not remarkable, except that it shows how faithfully the designer has performed his work, and how curiously he has entered into all the particulars of the subject. Master Thames Darrell, the handsome young man of the book, is, in Mr. Cruikshank's portraits of him, no favorite of ours.
The exact site of the tavern was in Bowl Yard, which ran into Broad Street near where Endell Street now is. Among Cruikshank's well-known drawings is a series illustrating Jack Sheppard's progress to the gallows.
I think I have before mentioned that no work of mere pleasantry has hitherto been found to answer; but a recent attempt of the kind as been made, with what success cannot as yet be decided. The editors are comedians belonging to the Boston company, and it is entitled "The American Comic Annual." It is accompanied by etchings, somewhat in the manner, but by no means with the spirit of Cruikshank's.
The value of Dickens' works is perennial, and Browne's illustrations represent the art fashion of a time only. So, too, I am unable to see any great cause to regret that Cruikshank's artistic connection with Dickens came to an end so soon. For both Browne and Cruikshank were pre-eminently caricaturists, and caricaturists of an old school. The latter had no idea of beauty.
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